John Calvin Commentary Genesis 30:33

"So shall my righteousness answer for me hereafter, when thou shalt come concerning my hire that is before thee: every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and black among the sheep, that [if found] with me, shall be counted stolen." — Genesis 30:33 (ASV)

So shall my righteousness answer for me. Literally, it is, “My righteousness shall answer in me.” But the particle בי (bi) signifies to me or for me. The sense, however, is clear: Jacob does not expect success except through his faith and integrity. Regarding the next clause, interpreters differ.

For some read, “When you shall come to my reward.” But others, translating in the third person, explain it as righteousness, which shall come to the reward, or to the rewarding of Jacob. Although either sense will suit the passage, I prefer to refer it to righteousness, because it is immediately added, “before you.” For it would be an improper form of expression, “You will come before your own eyes to my reward.” It now sufficiently appears what Jacob meant.

For he declares that he hoped for a testimony of his faith and uprightness from the Lord in the happy result of his labors, as if he had said, “The Lord, who is the best judge and vindicator of my righteousness, will indeed show with what sincerity and faithfulness I have until now conducted myself.”

And though the Lord often permits sinners to be enriched by wicked means, and allows them to acquire abundant gain by seizing the goods of others as their own, this proves no exception to the rule that His blessing ordinarily accompanies good faith and equity.

Therefore, Jacob justly gave this token of his fidelity: he committed the success of his labors to the Lord, so that his integrity might thereby be made manifest. The sense of the words is now clear: “My righteousness shall openly testify for me, because it will voluntarily come to reward me, and that so obviously that it shall not be hidden even from you.”

A silent reproof is contained in this language, intimating that Laban should feel how unjustly he had withheld the wages of the holy man, and that God would shortly show, by the result, how wickedly Laban had acted deceitfully regarding his own obligation to him. For there is an antithesis to be understood between the future and the past time, when he says, “Tomorrow (or in time to come) it will answer for me,” since indeed, yesterday and the day before, he could extort no justice from Laban.

Every one that is not speckled and spotted. Jacob binds himself to the crime and punishment of theft if he takes away any unspotted sheep from the flock, as if he would say, “Should you find with me anything unspotted, I am willing to be charged as a thief, because I require nothing to be given to me but the spotted lambs.” Some expound the words otherwise: “Whatever you shall find deficient in your flock, demand of me, as if I had stolen it.” But this appears to me a forced interpretation.